Bit-pay introduces a new merchant tool that allows businesses and customers to conduct payments using their mobile phones. The program is now in a pilot phase for several businesses in Downtown Orlando.

As mobile phones become smarter and add more features, using a phone as a digital wallet is inevitable. And now, the future has arrived.

Bit-Pay Mobile Checkout can be used on any Apple or Android phone with internet access. Bit-Pay's merchant tools are compatible with ALL bitcoin digital wallets. And payment notifications are typically less than 5 seconds, from every wallet we've tested.

Merchants can now offer a quick and easy payment option, without any risks of chargebacks, and without the high fees of credit card processing. Customers can now leave their wallets at home, and pay for things using cash on their phones.

Bitcoins are available in any country. In the near future, consumers will be able to travel anywhere in the world, and go shopping using their mobile phones, without changing their cash every time they arrive in a new country.

To learn more about Bit-Pay Mobile Checkout, and see some screen captures of the mobile app, visit:

1. in your example screens; is Frank & Steins the merchant or customer?2. i still don't get exactly how you're hedging out the currency risk when you're willing to pay USD's immediately for BTC's to merchant. are you instantaneously performing a BTC sale at mtgox automatically?3. i assume i need to download a BitPay app onto my Android?4. which Android wallet app have you found to be most reliable?

1. in your example screens; is Frank & Steins the merchant or customer?2. i still don't get exactly how you're hedging out the currency risk when you're willing to pay USD's immediately for BTC's to merchant. are you instantaneously performing a BTC sale at mtgox automatically?3. i assume i need to download a BitPay app onto my Android?4. which Android wallet app have you found to be most reliable?

Franks is the merchant. We make a little app like that for every merchant. Click through the 4 screencaps on our site to see the flow of the app and the invoice.

The merchant needs an Apple or Android phone, and so does the customer. The customer can use any bitcoin wallet on their phone. The customer does not need an account with Bit-Pay. Just scan and pay the unique address.

I've tested it with Mt Gox Mobile wallet, Instawallet, and the Bitcoin Wallet on Android by Andreas. They all work very fast. Once the money is sent, the notification pops up on the merchant invoice in less than 5 seconds. This is going over the regular bitcoin node network, so it's not an internal Bit-Pay to Bit-Pay thing. It works from every wallet we've tested so far.

We pay the merchants in dollars if they want. We have many different ways to convert bitcoins to dollars quickly for them.

yeah I agree, this is what we need to bring it mainstream. Now if we can only convince people that bitcoin is a currency and not a stock.

Bitcoin is not (yet?) a currency, it is a payment method = USD proxy and a speculative commodity.

Why? Because noone actually accepts Bitcoins, as people tie the prices to the current exchange rate in FIAT money, making it impossible to know how many Bitcoins a certain product is going to cost in a day or even in a few hours. A functional currency is also something you can hold to preserve most of your purchasing power for hours, days, weeks and months. This is not true for Bitcoin, counting since June.

it is a currency in the way that you can use them to barter for products.... isn't that the definition of a currency? I am selling a few items for a bitcoin price, the value of bitcoins decreased a bit, so I raised the price a bit. in the end, i get my btc and then use those to buy other things, once my fiat is turned to digital coins, I do not go back, I just use it till its gone.

Hottest Peppers in the WORLD! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=42254.20)